On liking to get lost in the movies like everyone else:
“I hate knowing too much when I’m going to the cinema. I don’t want to know that the actor has just gone through a divorce. I don’t want to know that the person is an alcoholic.”

On whether she thinks people can let go of her as a celebrity and focus on her as an actress:
“I think I’d be quite surprised if they could . . . I know with ‘A Dangerous Method’ people liked the spanking an awful lot. But I’m not quite sure. It’s weird, though, with the spanking. When we were in Venice, I didn’t get asked about it once . . . But in England, it was pretty much the only thing I got asked about. I’m not quite sure what that says about the English.”

Keira Knightley stars as patient-turned-psychiatrist Sabina Spielrein in David Cronenberg’s A Dangerous Method, which expands into theaters across the country this week. The film came out in limited release last Fall, and quickly earned notoriety for the racy sex scenes Keira shares with her hot costar Michael Fassbender, who plays Carl Jung.

Yesterday, Keira spoke about working with both Michael and David. Keira shared excitement for the critical acclaim Michael’s earned for another daring performance in Shame, a movie she liked quite a bit. She also spoke about her other upcoming projects, Seeking a Friend at the End of the World, the directorial debut from Lorene Scafaria featuring Steve Carell, and a remake of Anna Karenina. The later film sees Keira paired up with director Joe Wright for the third time, after Atonement and Pride & Prejudice, as well as leading man Jude Law. Keira said:

On having reservations about the spanking scenes in DM: “I was 95% going to say yes as soon as my agent said, ‘Look, David Cronenberg is going to offer you a film.’ . . . I did have reservations about the masochistic scenes. I actually spoke to him about it and said, ‘I love the script, but I’m not sure I can do this because of these scenes. I’m not quite sure I want to go there.’ And he said, ‘If that stops you playing the part, that would be a tragedy so let’s just take them out.’ And I thought that was an amazing thing for him offer. We just talked and talked, and once he’s made it clear he didn’t want it to be voyeuristic and sexy, he wanted them to be kind of more clinical, I thought I might as well go for it.”
On similarities between Jude and Michael: “No! No. Jude’s a proper actor — he’s wonderful to work with. He’s a proper actor, I mean they all are . . . Michael works in a much more muscular way. Everything turns into muscle memory. He works a script, and works a script. Jude does a lot of theater so he comes from the preparation side — like a rehearsal room. He’s really open to it, and he asks a lot of questions on that day. He’s just phenomenal. So no there aren’t any similarities, but they’re all very good actors.”
On first-time director Lorene: “She’s just fab — she’s great. She’s completely the reason I think everybody signed up to do the movie. The script was wonderful. It was one of the best scripts I’ve ever read. The dialogue was brilliant, and the concept behind it was amazing. I haven’t seen the finished article yet. I’m seeing it [today] so that’s really exciting. She’s an amazing woman, an amazing talent. On set, to think it was her first film — you’d never have guessed it. She was so cool, she knew exactly what she wanted, she was unbelievably fast, she was completely amazing. So hopefully it will work!”
On what she’s excited to see succeed during award season: “I was really excited about Shame, because given the nature of it and the subject matter of it, quite often those ones get passed by. I think Meryl Streep in The Iron Lady. That performance was amazing. That was very good. I haven’t seen The Artist yet, but I’m really looking forward to seeing that.”

To read Keira’s thoughts on Michael in Shame, working with the “lovely” Steve Carell, and wrapping Anna Karenina, just keep reading.

On Michael’s work in Shame: “I have seen him in Shame. I think he’s amazing. I saw him in Hunger as well, and he got quite a lot of awards for that one as well, which was completely right and justified. He’s a phenomenal actor, and I think his performance in Shame is amazing. Talk about brave. I think it’s wonderful.”
On learning about psychiatry for DM: “I knew nothing about it. The script came through my door and I just thought it was totally fascinating. Obviously, I’d heard of Freud and Jung but I’d never heard of Sabina Spielrein. I really knew very little about any of them. It was really just an amazing opportunity to read as many books as I could in the couple of months before I started and really delve into that world. And it was fascinating.”
On bring surprised by the amount of press the DM spanking scene received: “This time in New York, people aren’t really talking about it. They are a little bit, but not as much as I thought that they would be. It goes to show how well the film’s been received and how fascinating the subject matter is. That is an interesting part of it, and I was interested by it because I didn’t understand why people would want to do that or what the vibe is and what she was getting out of it — the fact that the subject itself is so fascinating. What’s more shocking about the character is what’s going on in her head rather than the spanking scene.”
On cracking up while working with Steve Carell: “”He’s just lovely. He’s such a lovely man. I was quite frightened, because I haven’t done comedy before really. I was kind of going, ‘It’s terrifying, I don’t know how to do it, I don’t even want to do it!’ He was such a sweetheart.”
On finishing up Anna Karenina: “I wrapped before Christmas. They’ve got, I think five more days to go. They’re going to Russia for five days. Yeah, it’s pretty much in the bag.”
On working with Joe Wright for the first time: “We do have a shorthand, but it doesn’t get easier. Neither of us are people that are looking for the easy option. We’re always looking for something that’s going to be more difficult or more challenging. Taking on Anna Karenina is a certainly massive challenge. Partly because it’s an 820-page book and you’re trying to get it down to, well, a 130-page screenplay.”

Drawn from true-life events, David Cronenberg’s ‘A Dangerous Method’ chronicles the turbulent relationships between fledgling psychiatrist Carl Jung (Michael Fassbender), his mentor Sigmund Freud (Viggo Mortensen) and Sabina Spielrein (Keira Knightley), the troubled but beautiful young woman who comes between them. Into the mix comes Otto Gross (Vincent Cassell), a debauched patient who is determined to push the boundaries. In this exploration of sensuality, ambition and deceit set the scene for the pivotal moment when Jung, Freud and Sabina come together and split apart, forever changing the face of modern thought. ‘A Dangerous Method’ is set for release November 23rd in the US, and Febuary 10th in the UK. Check out what Keira Knightley had to say about the film in a quick interview below.

What was the research process for you like on ‘A Dangerous Method,’ to help you understand Sabina more?

Keira Knightley: As soon as I knew I was going to play the part I phoned Christopher Hampton (screenwriter), and said, ‘help!’ He said, ‘alright, come around.’ I thought that he was going to give me a talk for a couple of hours and I’d take notes, which he did, but he also handed me a massive pile of books and said, ‘Read all of those, it’s somewhere in there.’ So I did that, I also found a translation of the diaries and Jung’s notes, Jung biographies, including ‘Memories, Dreams, Reflections.’ Sabina’s diary entries, a lot of that, they were very helpful. Then I spoke to couple of analyses as well, just to get an idea of what exactly hysteria was and what it would come from.

It’s such a frantic and frenetic role, was that a challenge in crafting?

Keira Knightley: It was a very challenging role, I think that was one of the reasons I wanted to play her, because I didn’t know who she was. I think very often when you play characters, there are certain threads that link you, emotionally you can understand exactly what the person went through, with this one I had no frame of reference. But that was what was fascinating and exciting about it. So it really was a question of trying to find logic with what was perceived from the outside to be madness. Because I think as much as she knew that she was ill, there were logical reasons within her for the way she behaved, so it was really about trying to understand what that logic was, and then find out from the inside and build her up. With the help of David Cronenberg, we managed to craft something. It was a very exciting process.

Is it cathartic, in a strange way, playing a role like Sabina?

Keira Knightley Oh yeah, it can be incredibly cathartic, particularly with a role like this. It’s almost strange what a wonderful time we had making this film (laughs). It’s….particularly my character is very dark, so it seems almost perverse that we had such a wonderful and fun time outside that. I think part of that was because you’re going to these incredibly dark places, you’re trying to think of that and it all comes out in that direction, then afterwards you leave it and you go and watch football, have a beer and have a really nice time.

You seem to love acting in historical based films.

Keira Knightley: I do a lot of costume dramas (laughs), I don’t know why, I really just enjoy them. I think it’s a taste thing, I just really enjoy them. I love reading about them, I love history books so it’s a privilege that that’s part of my job.